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KnightErrantJR
Great Reader
USA
5402 Posts |
 Posted - 03 Jul 2006 : 01:58:25
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Ever since I read about character trees in the old Dark Sun campaign set, I have wanted to run a campaign using the concept. Not because I wanted to run a really deadly campaign, but because I liked the idea of a large adventuring party without the downside of trying to have 8 or more players in a game session.
The way the character tree worked, you made up to four characters, and any time you started a new adventure, you could choose which character you wanted to use for that session. For Dark Sun, this was a way to compensate for the fact that you could have a hard time getting a character raised.
Some of the benefits I could see in this campaign would be encouraging more races/classes. As it stands, a lot of players like to play the "big four" classes, and most play humans. While I wouldn't want to have a campaign with too many strange species or classes, if everyone had a "big four" character and at least one human in their trees, it would tend to cover the bases, and still encourage some more daring ideas.
The down side would be that between rotating out characters, it would likely take longer to get to higher levels, but then again, that has never really been a down side to me, since I still dream of setting a campaign to start before the Time of Troubles and trying to see how long it takes to catch up with the timeline.
The up side is that you could actually do some of the things that you see in novels, where half the party takes off to the other side of the continent to retreive the (insert artifact name here), while the other half sets off to slow down the minions of (insert campaign villain her) until the other half of the party gets back.
Anyway, besides meandering on and on about what my dream campaign would be, has anyone run a "character tree" campaign, and if so, how did it go? If not, what do you think of the concept?
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Chyron
Learned Scribe
Hong Kong
279 Posts |
Posted - 03 Jul 2006 : 03:11:29
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Well, I have not run a character tree campaign....but I did play one as part of my old gaming groups Dark-Sun campaign some years back.
You pretty much covered all the pros, however one con from the players perpective is that after a while a few of us found ourselves attached to one character in our respective trees. These characters tended to a 'favorite'...so the others characters were often not role-played or developed as well as that 'one'. One of our players actually hated the tree concept and would try and suicide his alterna-characters so that he could force the DMs hand into brining his main back into play...
My only real beef with the tree concept as a player was that it slowed down PC growth tremendously...as instead of gaming with the same character at every weekly session, we now alternated...which made it seem like crawl. Darksun characters started at 3rd by default...and I think at the end of half a year of Darksun the average level of our tree chracters was only 5th.
You may find some players are not into the 'tree' concept as much as others....but I have a feeling others would love the idea. One player made 'siblings' in his tree...and during interludes they would meet up and exchange suitable items and such...
Also our DM was not as 'campaign' minded as your idea seems to be, so if the players know this they will likely be more excited about the tree concept. |
Just My Thoughts
Chyron :)
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Edited by - Chyron on 03 Jul 2006 03:21:43 |
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Jindael
Senior Scribe
USA
357 Posts |
Posted - 05 Jul 2006 : 20:53:36
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I don’t know how Darksun had their character Tree stuff set up, but I used to run in a group that used something with the same name, and worked like this:
The Player would make up a number of PC’s. You would choose which PC to use at the start of an arc, and follow through. Then, later, you could choose a new PC with a new arc. (“You have returned from the ancient ruins, and blah blah blah, you can swap out now if you want.”)
Every time you got a level, one of the other PC’s on your tree also got a level; your choice, but never twice in a row, and no tea parties.
This let our small group (3 players) have a diverse range of characters, and as you mentioned KEjr, let different characters complete different tasks with the same goal. (e.x. recover the three pieces of whatever before the eclipse.)
For me and another player, it was fantastic, and we not only liked being able to switch to something different for a change of pace, but it was fun ‘talking to ourselves’ when the whole group met up. (“I think the group would be best served if I had the magical longsword.” “Surely you jest! With your greasy fingers, it is sure to be lost down the gullet of the first oversized rodent you encounter.” Etc)
However, one of the players just couldn’t bring herself to ever switch out and enjoy it. She only had eyes for one character, and saw no point in not advancing that character all the time. In this case, however, the other player in the group had a good idea, passed it off to the DM, and by bringing in someone relevant to the problem player’s character (in this case, her long lost sister) did the problem vanish. Er, mostly.
I really like the idea, as well as the “get a level for your dormant character” concept that we used. It kept things exciting, and fast paced.
In another game (non-FR, it was sort of a Spyhunter/Starwars hybrid) We all made three characters. In that game, one of the PC’s was contacted by our Hook up, and give the job. In that case, the Player selected would choose one character from the other player’s ‘trees’ that they felt best fit into the task to be done. A very Mission Impossible type feel. The job is break in and steal back something? Well, I guess I’ll need a computer guy and a sneak, so I call up those two PC’s and offer them the job, ‘assembling my team’ as it were. This could go over okay in a certain type of FR game, I suppose.
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"You don't have a Soul. You are a Soul. You have a body."
-- C.S. Lewis |
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Ergdusch
Master of Realmslore
Germany
1720 Posts |
Posted - 06 Jul 2006 : 09:24:26
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I never played a character tree. However, I played character lottery system once: there was a pool of 10 characters (one of them a reincarnated Elf fighter now being a dog). No matter how many players participated in a session, all PCs were devided among the players at random. So you never played a character on a regular basis and often played more than one at a time. The system was very confusing and with so many PCs also very slow, as you can imaginne. But there were a lot of fun situations during gameplay none the less.
However, I would not recommand it........... |
"Das Gras weht im Wind, wenn der Wind weht." |
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Snotlord
Senior Scribe
Norway
476 Posts |
Posted - 07 Jul 2006 : 19:31:40
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quote:
Originally posted by KnightErrantJR
If not, what do you think of the concept?
I have not read the Dark Sun material, but I believe I've played quite a bit in a similar style, and liked it quite a bit. It's an excellent tool to create big and complex stories that goes all over the map. More characters means more pc-npc relations and more plot hooks to play with, which I like. I DM'ed a slow moving "A Game of Thrones" style campaign in a homebrewed setting over a few years now, and it has turned out very cool as the many characters has grown and crossed path.
A downside is favorite characters as before mentioned, and the balance between characters if some players get to play fewer characters and thus advance in level faster. |
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KnightErrantJR
Great Reader
USA
5402 Posts |
Posted - 09 Jul 2006 : 01:49:44
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I almost forgot how the old Mechwarrior game worked. You would roll up the stats for your whole crew, including your techs and mechanics that were part of your unit. So if you had a mission where you needed to jury-rig some stolen machine or fix it to get it running, or if you needed to hack into a computer, you would swap out one of the mech pilot characters for one of the more useful guys to play. Not exaclty like what I was initially talking about, but I just remember that we had played that as well.
Its cool that some of you actually had some hands on "tree" experience, especially since the few Dark Sun games I got to run we only made up one character, since my players just wanted to get a feel for the world.
I like the idea of the level for the dormant characters, but I think I would turn it into, the raw xp (i.e. from killing monsters, surviving traps, story awards) are given to the dormant characters as well, but the roleplaying and exceptional circumstance awards I give out would only be for the character involved.
What would you guys thing of smaller "trees" (bushes?), where you might only have two characters to swap in and out. Would it help out with the favorite character and slow advancement issues? |
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Snotlord
Senior Scribe
Norway
476 Posts |
Posted - 09 Jul 2006 : 10:46:41
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quote:
Originally posted by KnightErrantJR
What would you guys thing of smaller "trees" (bushes?), where you might only have two characters to swap in and out. Would it help out with the favorite character and slow advancement issues?
Yes, I believe so. Its easier to create two characters you like than four. But the key is that everybody has the same number of characters and that all swapped regulary. This was not the case in my game, where the players swapped when the story dictaded it. The story benefitted, which was the whole point of the experiement, but the balance between the players/characters suffered. The problem was that that resident powergamer also was the one with fewest characters (I still slap myself for not seeing that coming), and with evil characters this got pretty sour after a while. |
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Mkhaiwati
Learned Scribe
USA
252 Posts |
Posted - 09 Jul 2006 : 15:31:38
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I played in an old game called Living Steel, where they also suggested people roll up two characters and swap them out depending on the mission. Also one mechanic in the game might be that a pc could be on a mission for an extended period of time, and while that group is gone, something could be happening at home base, so to speak.
I like he idea, if you keep the number small, perhaps two or three per player. If you have ideas on how the pcs could be split, you might suggest a stealthy character, combat character, or some other generic type of characters.
I always thought it gave some options to a group when not everyone could show for a game the next time the group meets. This way the gm doesn't have to somehow "magically" insert a missing pc into a group already adventuring. The party could just have a second group do something else.
Mkhaiwati |
"Behold the work of the old... let your heritage not be lost but bequeath it as a memory, treasure and blessing... Gather the lost and the hidden and preserve it for thy children."
"not nale. not-nale. thog help nail not-nale, not nale. and thog knot not-nale while nale nail not-nale. nale, not not-nale, now nail not-nale by leaving not-nale, not nale, in jail." OotS #367 |
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stormcrow1618
Acolyte
12 Posts |
Posted - 06 Sep 2006 : 00:18:15
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| Years ago I played 2nd Ed. Forgotten Realms (set primarily in The Diamond Spider tavern in Calimport) in the #tds mIRC channel on SorceryNet. This was a 24/7 game, and we had a core group of players located in various places around the world (East/West coast States, Canada, Britain, Italy, Japan, etc.) and so due to time-zone differences, generally there were at least a couple players online no matter when you strolled in. Some players had only one character, but the majority had two or three, sometimes even four or five. I had fifteen living characters at one point. We would shift nicknames in the channel to represent which character we were bringing to the forefront. Dice rolls were handled by an IRC 'bot' which calculated the randomized numbers and spit them out in the channel. There was a core group of DMs who handled in channel disputes and oversaw any dice rolls, but largely the RP was free-form (having been born of an older FFRP channel) DMs would volunteer to run plot arcs (approved by DM majority vote) and players would choose which character(s) to bring along, or whether to participate at all. It was an INCREDIBLE experience. |
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Kalin Agrivar
Senior Scribe
Canada
956 Posts |
Posted - 06 Sep 2006 : 14:17:32
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I have always used the "trees" with my games...it basically has all the benifits of having a cohort (without the leadership feat) plus
* it allows the players to make multiple "cool" characters...and makes them more enthuseastic about playing (as they want to play all their characters)
* it cuts down on the time a player has to draw up a new character when an older one dies and also cuts down on the wait time to bring in that new character
* it also allows players to double up and play two characters at once when the players know that someone won't be able to make it to the game for a while
* it allows the player's more opprotunity to adapt their party to certain situations (i.e. we are tackling an undead stronghold so lets bring all the clerics)
* it lets one player's character to accomplish those "behind the scene" activities such as casting those "long non-adventure" spells (e.g. identify and legend lore), magical item creation, stronghold/buisness building and character duties (governing, religious obligations)
The only real drawback is that often not all of the "cool" characters are used...
as a house rule I use all characters in a tree that are not active gain 10% - 50% of the experience gained by the active character (the % depends on what the non-active characters were doing...). This keeps the PC levels in the tree moderately level in the game... |
Kalin Xorell El'Agrivar
- High Mage of the Arcane Assembly
- Lore Keeper of the Vault of Ancestors
- 3rd Son of the Lord of the Stand |
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Beirnadri Magranth
Senior Scribe
USA
720 Posts |
Posted - 06 Sep 2006 : 17:08:53
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ive never played this style but i have thought about the concept
I like the idea that you can flesh out a campaign's theme and plot from many different angles
and the characters can work against each other too (not in an evil way just in contrast to each other and specific skills)
it also lets parties have varied skills and so overcome major challenges without having to have high level characters or that annoying shifting class from Races of Destiny. |
"You came here to be a martyr in a great big bang of glory... instead you will die with a whimper."
::moussaoui tries to interrupt::
"You will never get a chance to speak again and that's an appropriate ending."
-Judge Brinkema |
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Character Tree Campaign (Random thoughts/Wishes)
